The Sordid Promise (29 page)

I shook my head vehemently. “I want to see her. I want to see my dog.”

“She’s still in surgery, Miss Givens. If she pulls through, you’ll be able to see her tomorrow. We have your number. Why don’t you…visit a hospital, where someone can tend to you?”

“I’ll wait here. I’ll wait until she comes around. I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying right here.”

“The hell you are.” Melonie and I both looked at entrance doors. It seemed Eric rushed over from the hospital, because he was in his blue scrubs and still had the Strong Hospital ID clipped to the bottom of his shirt. His anger softened when he looked at my face.

“You called him here?” I cut at Melonie through my teeth.

“He…didn’t exactly give me a choice.”

I quickly tried to wipe my face. “I’m okay.”

He shook his head as he lifted my chin and gently moved it from side to side. “We’re going to the hospital, then we’re going home. You have open wounds that need to be closed before they become infected. No negotiations, Nik.”

Melonie moved to help me to stand, but he gave her a look that made her shrink away.

In the parking lot, Eric got me settled into the front passenger seat of his car.

“Sit tight, I’ll be back.” He gently kissed the side of my head. Reaching over, he turned on the ignition, ensuring I would receive the warmth from the heated seats and the vents.

He walked Melonie to her car. And from the movement of his mouth and body, I could tell he was yelling at her. I slid down the window to hear what was said.

“I asked you to do one thing, one simple fucking thing. I asked you to do it for a reason, so tell me why the fuck you failed at doing something someone with less than half a brain could’ve done?”

“I didn’t know this would happen. How would I know Tamala would come after her? How would I know Tamala would finally break and attack her? But you…? You say watch her for a reason. Did you know this would happen? Did you know Tamala would try to hurt her?”

“Don’t you dare fucking blame me for this! I would never let anyone hurt her. So, tell me, Mel, how did Tamala know when and where she would be?”

“No!” she shrilled. “I would never. I never—I would never do that Eric.”

“I don’t fucking know that, do I? Because…you don’t have a damn scratch on you. And one of those whores had a knife? They could’ve seriously hurt her. They could’ve
killed
her.”

“This is your fault,” Melonie shrilled. “You led a fragile girl on, and this is your payback. What happened to Nikki is on you.”

“Excuse me?” Eric pressed forward, tormenting her with his intimidating glare. He grabbed her by the neck, nearly choking her. “Say that one more goddamned time,” he spat. “I dare you to blame me for what Tamala did to her one more time. I fucking dare you.”

“Just let me go, Eric,” she gasped.

“I’ll do that and a whole lot more. You’re done in my book.”

“Eric, it wasn’t my fault,” Melonie cried after his back. “Don’t cut me out for something I had nothing to do with. My heart is breaking, too. Eric? I’m sorry!”

He got in the car with a slam of the door, smoothing his hair with his palm. “And you, who can’t fucking listen, will you listen to me now?”

His shout made me cry. I wanted to be with Maisha. I wanted to know what was going on with her. His anger, wrongly pointed at me, didn’t help matters.

He took a counted breath and looked out of the windshield. “She’ll be all right, Nik. I know she’ll be.” He slipped his hand across my lap and grabbed my hand. “I will fix this mess. I promise.”

My phone laid next to my side as I stared at it, hoping it would ring. Hoping someone on the other end would call and tell me that Maisha was feeling better. Tell me that it was okay to pick her up. I just wanted to wrap my arms around her neck and never let her go — give her the best meal she’d ever had for protecting me.

I sucked in a sob as I stared at the DVD case slightly hidden away in the TV cabinet of my bedroom, the case that Tamala threw at me. It haunted me just as much as my guilt over Maisha’s pain did.

I needed something to get my mind off the pain—something to keep me from fiddling with the stitches in my face. I looked so horrible, I didn’t know how Eric could look at me. I couldn’t look at me. My black-eye, busted lip, and split forehead made me look like I felt on the inside. My body was covered in bruises here and there. He made me get x-rays at the hospital, but as I assumed, it was just another bruised rib. The first one was given to me by Cherish Clark.

I glanced down to the cracked open door to my bathroom. He was in the shower and mentioned something about having to shave. It bought me a good thirty minutes to see what was on the DVD. Something to distract me from my worry about Maisha. I was going to do something…something to make my pain worse if I couldn’t focus on something else.

I dropped the ice from my eye and moved to the armoire. I slid the DVD into the player, keeping the volume low. I waited as it began to play.

Tamala was on her knees to Eric with her head bowed. There were two other men in the room, leering at her. One of them was Preston.

“Please don’t make me do this, Eric,” she pleaded.

“But you want to claim you love me. You can’t do the things that make me happy, can you?”

“Yes. Yes, I can. I would do anything for you.”

“Reaffirm me, Tam.”

“I love you. I would do anything for you. I need you Eric.”

“I will always care for you. I will always take care of you as long as you make me happy. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she said through a quivering snort. “I-I know.”

He pulled her up by her hair and pressed into her ear. “Be a good little whore for me.”

What I saw next…was hard to watch. I recalled the way Preston treated Estelle on the deck, but compared to the way Eric and his friends treated Tamala….it seemed Preston treated Estelle with care. They hit her, choked her, and demeaned her. Made her cry. Said awful things to her that even the most uncouth person wouldn’t say to their enemy. Made her do disgusting things with their bodily fluids and her own. All the while Eric was a part of the activities; he carried an insidious smile on his face.

There was someone else in the room serving as a voyeur—another woman. I moved closer to the screen in order to make out her face. It was unmistakable. It was Estelle. She watched for a time before she joined Eric’s side. Eventually, she slid down to her knees and began to—I pressed pause, unable to watch it further. The date on the bottom of the screen indicated it was recorded five years ago.

I knew where it was all going. I didn’t need to see more. For a pointed reason, I continuously rewound to the part where Eric professed his feelings for Tamala. I rewound it over and over again, taking in the look in his eyes, trying to gauge the sincerity—to recall if he’d looked at me the same way when he said he loved me. I needed to see if he could recall the expression he had in my favorite photograph of him.

“A gift from Tamala?”

I startled at Eric’s voice.

In just a towel around his waist, his body and hair still damp from his shower, his eyes cut at me.

I grabbed the remote, but my wounds made me clumsy. I dropped it. Eric quickly swooped in, grabbed the remote, and stood in front of me with his back to me. He let it play for a moment, watching the video in stillness before he pressed the eject button. Grabbing the DVD, he fingered it in his hands. He flung it against the wall, causing it to break. He stepped forward with his hands engaged like he wanted to grab me. He tempered whatever he was feeling, letting his hands drop to his sides and took a long, slow breath in then out. “You know what she’s doing, right?”

“Have you…have you been sleeping with her since—”

“No!” he shouted. “Absolutely fucking not.”

“Then…why haven’t you dealt with her? When I came to you about how she’s been harassing me, why didn’t you take care of it? Why did you do nothing? You could’ve prevented—” I glanced down at the floor, knowing that if Maisha were here, she would be at my feet right now.

He jerked my chin up, his eyes falling coldly on me. “You’re right. What happened to you is my fault. To redeem myself, I’m going to deal with her. You’re going to watch as she gets what’s coming to her. Just…sit tight, Nik.” He eyed the bed for me to sit.

Stuck in a chaotic emotion, I sat on the edge of the bed. My phone rang.

“H-Hello?” I answered hoarsely.

“Miss Givens? This is Rebecca from Northgate Animal Hospital. Do you think you can come back?”

My heart wretched. I knew what she was going to tell me. I just…knew it. “No,” I sobbed. “Tell me whatever it is now.”

“I would rather not—”

“Tell me right fucking now!” I screamed.

“I-I’m so sorry, Miss Givens. Maisha died early this morning. I’m so—”

I threw the phone across the room. The gut-wrenching ache was too much to take. My legs gave out, and I slid to the floor. Wailing, I clutched the rug. “H-how much am I supposed to take? How much am I…” I couldn’t…breathe. I didn’t understand why this had to happen to me. Why did she come into my life just for someone else to take her away when she was defending me? She protected me. She died for me. “I’m….toxic to everything I touch.”

A loud bang startled me. I slowly looked up to Eric punching the wall, and he didn’t stop until he punched a hole through the drywall.

I lazily stood. Torn out of my nightmare; I fell into a hazy dream. “E-Eric?”

Without turning to me he held up his bloody hand in defeat. “I…have to make a phone call,” he stated in a low, broken husky tone. He turned and grabbed his phone from the night table. “Don’t move. Don’t do anything. Just…sit.” He pointed to the bed without looking at me.

I weakly slumped over and sat on the edge, waiting.

He went inside the bathroom and closed the door.

We behaved like zombies for two days after Tamala’s attack. Barely saying a word to each other, and barely leaving my bedroom. Not sure how much more I could take. My exclusive prescription had a black box warning I tried to ignore before. The gorgeous packaging and promising benefits made it so easy to develop a blindside. Warning: Side effects may be worse than what it’s supposed to cure.

We were in a seedy hotel in the worst part of downtown; the one where the hookers and crack addicts hang out. The comforter looked too repulsive to sit on. I pealed it back, thankful to see pure white sheets. I sat on the edge of the bed and contemplated the odd set up.

Just off to the side of the television, an open laptop was situated on the side of the TV table. The hotel room is adjoined to another suite. A camera was set up in the other room and displayed through the laptop, allowing a view of everything that occurred in the adjoining suite. Eric was on the other side, chatting with a guy I wouldn’t want to see in a dark alley. There were seven other men with him, who looked equally threatening. I couldn’t figure out how he would know characters like this. He made it
very
clear that he didn’t want me to meet them, either. He didn’t tell me of his purpose behind why we were at the hotel. I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to crawl into my bed and never get out.